For content creators who leverage the regulatory requirements of the GDPR to refine their customer data-gathering processes and create—or rebuild—trust that such data will be used only to the customer's benefit, the byproduct should be more satisfied, more trusting, and more engaged customers. And that's a worthy goal on either side of the Atlantic.

Content Management

Telerik announced the latest release of its content management system, Sitefinity, providing users greater information governance capabilities, along with new productivity improvements. It's become essential to utilize an automated, streamlined process and environment to manage digital assets and deliver digital experiences. The System Audit Trail, now available in the Telerik Sitefinity CMS, provides a measure of transparent protection and accountability by helping organizations supervise processes while managing digital assets.

Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. announced the general availability of the Lionbridge onDemand API. The onDemand API is the first translation API that provides support for a broad range of translation options, cost levels and content types. This enables technology platforms to write to a single API, rather than managing separate integrations and custom development with numerous providers.

According to the "Online Personal Experience" study by Janrain, more than half (57%) of people are just fine with providing personal information to a website and as long as they benefit and the information is used responsibly. Janrain also found that 77% would be more trusting of companies collecting private data if the businesses were transparent about how the information would be used. But that's where the trouble lies. Many content providers are still struggling to use the information they collect in a way that truly improves the customer experience.

raw engineering, a software technology company specializing in mobile app and web application development in the cloud, announced contentstack.io - a mobile-first CMS for the enterprise. contentstack.io empowers accelerated content delivery across all web properties, web apps, mobile sites, and mobile apps managed by today's enterprises.

Sitecore, a provider of customer experience management, announced it will offer enhanced social media management capabilities to its customers with the introduction of Sitecore Social Powered by Komfo. Sitecore has acquired a majority stake in Komfo, a Danish social media marketing and community engagement application provider. The investment will extend Komfo's presence in global markets and forms the basis of Sitecore's social media product.

In the world of digital asset management (DAM), management of assets is, obviously, the key. Management may also include such notions as ingestion, transcoding, and delivery. In many organizations, DAM is largely about access control and control over your assets to ensure brand consistency and proper usage. This is all fine in theory, but what happens in practice, sometimes, is what I call "asset suffocation."

Widen Enterprises, a provider of digital asset management (DAM) software, launched new content distribution and collaboration features with version 7.2 of the Widen Media Collective. The latest version of Widen's flagship DAM system will make it easier for creative and marketing teams to manage complex projects, distribute content, and track engagement across the internet.

ADAM Software, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Product Content Management (PCM) software provider, announced that it has entered into a strategic sales and technology partnership with Sitecore, the global leader in customer experience management.

Being an omnivore can have its advantages-as evidenced by the evolutionary dominance humans have enjoyed over other animals that only eat meat or plants. Likewise, being an omnichannel marketer may give you a leg up on your competition in the survival-of-the-fittest game of appealing to contemporary consumers, say the experts.

e-Spirit Inc., a supplier of content management solutions, announced a signi?cant advancement in website personalization technology with the integration of Woopra real-time customer analytics with FirstSpirit CMS.

Composite has released its 4.2 version of its .NET open source CMS. This release has specifically focused on improving an editor's experience by making the content creation and editing process faster, more intuitive, and ultimately more satisfying. The outcome is a richer web experience for visitors on the website.

As a content strategy consultant, I'm often called upon by brands seeking to find ways to solve complex content challenges. Far too often, they start off their quest for a solution by asking the wrong first question: "What software do we need?"This is the wrong first question for a variety of reasons. The most important reason is that software products are tools, not content solutions, no matter what software company marketing mavens would like you to believe. Tools help content professionals solve content challenges and meet business goals. Tools, by themselves, do not solve content problems.

Content personalization on the web is quickly becoming the standard. Amazon and Netflix have mastered it, presenting product or content suggestions so enticing it's as if the companies can perform black magic by reading consumers' minds. Research shows that personalized content done well can make websites more sticky and dramatically increase sales. But experts say that good content personalization is much harder than it looks. And yet, most customers seem to crave personalized content, and retailers see gold in the tactic, which means that its usage will only increase.

SDL announced the next release of SDL Web, the web pillar of the Customer Experience Cloud (CXC). SDL CXC now offers context brokering, which enables businesses to provide personal and contextualized interactive brand experiences for customers across all channels and devices throughout their individual customer journeys.

Verivo Software, an enterprise mobile application platform provider, announced the launch of Akula 2.0. The latest release of the mobile application server provides enterprise IT departments more control, visibility, and governance of their enterprise mobile applications with new capabilities. Akula 2.0 is an open platform that enables IT departments to secure and govern mobile services and applications while allowing development teams to access and reuse these services leveraging the front-end tools of their choice.

CMS provider e-Spirit has announced the release of its latest version of its FirstSpirit content management system. FirstSpirit 5.1 has many new features that will enable companies to improve their time to market. These new features are intended to enhance the user experience along the entire web experience supply chain. Marketing managers will now be able to target their website visitors with personalized online experiences and software developers and integrators will appreciate how easy it is to use.

Splice Machine, provider of the only Hadoop RDBMS, announced that its real-time relational database management system is now available as a public beta. The Splice Machine database enables companies to replace traditional RDBMS systems. A full-featured, transactional SQL database on Hadoop, Splice Machine moves Hadoop beyond its batch analytics heritage to power operational applications and real-time analytics.

ProofHQ, an online proofing software provider, and North Plains Systems, which helps companies effectively connect with and engage their customers through visual media, announced the availability of the ProofHQ Xinet Connector. The connector integrates ProofHQ directly into Xinet giving Xinet users direct access to ProofHQ's content and creative asset review and approval capabilities.

Sitecore, a provider of customer experience management, announced early access to the next generation of its experience platform including the Sitecore Experience Database, a highly scalable big data repository that collects and connects actionable customer data to deliver unique customer experiences in real-time. Marketers can view the entire experience of every individual customer that engages with their brand through the Sitecore Experience Profile.

Hippo has launched Hippo CMS 7.9 with extended functionality for all users. Notable changes include Advanced Channel Management and the introduction of CKEditor, SCXML Workflows, and Secure Content Replication. These changes bring increased control over website navigation and content presentation into the hands of end-users, and enable developers to develop more advanced workflow scenarios. By introducing a secure replication mechanism between the delivery and authoring environments, Hippo CMS 7.9 adds an additional layer of security to content in staging and embargo phases.

Cloudwords, a cloud-based marketing globalization platform, announced the availability of machine translation as part of its newest product release. With machine translation, Cloudwords now enables customers to globalize marketing campaigns and content using whichever localization method and model is suited for their content and budget needs. The options include translation by preferred external vendors; in-house translation; translation by vendors in the Cloudwords marketplace; or machine translation. The Machine Translation feature enables customers to translate marketing content that requires short turnaround times or extremely low costs.

One of Rockfish's clients, Corner Bakery Cafe, was looking to relaunch its website with content at its heart, and Rockfish was selected to be the agency to relaunch the site. Rockfish needed to find the right CMS to address the needs of its client.

Making sense of large amounts of disorganized information that is spread across wide swaths of an organization has always been the defining challenge of knowledge management. In recent years, the ability for organizations to capture information about themselves, their customers, and every facet of their business has increased exponentially; the phenomenon, of course, is known as "big data." As troves of data grow, so too does the potential to leverage it, and one key to keeping up with that potential is through the implementation of systems and solutions that streamline your organization's ability to analyze it, access it, and act on it. In short, big data is spurring the symbolic "long tail" of institutional knowledge to grow ever longer, and organizations must be prepared to adjust their knowledge management strategy to compensate.